


she treats me well

by infinitesimalwords



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 04:39:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7603750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitesimalwords/pseuds/infinitesimalwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erin takes care of Holtzmann in more ways than one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	she treats me well

**Author's Note:**

> i love holtzmann with every inch of my gay body. 
> 
> title is from ben howard's song with the same name.

Holtzmann forgets a lot of things when it comes to taking care of herself. She forgets to eat and sleep for long periods of time, working for as long as she can before giving in to her exhaustion and falling asleep at her work table. She forgets to take care of the little nicks and cuts on her hands when she’s tinkering with new machinery because she’s so close to making it work flawlessly. It’s not that she intentionally does it, it’s just that everything else seems so much more important and there's so much to do. 

Erin watches all of this and it bothers her for some inexplicable reason. She doesn't like watching Holtz crash and burn from exhaustion, only for her to get back up and and restart the unhealthy cycle of work, work, work, then collapse in a tired heap. It's a problem so she does the one thing she knows best: she finds solutions.

So when it’s 12 pm and she’s eating her lunch and notices that Holtzmann hasn’t had anything to eat besides handfuls of pringles, she casually says, “Want a piece of this?”

It catches Holtz’s attention immediately and her eyes snap up to Erin. She grins wide and removes her goggles. “Why Erin, I thought you’d never ask.”

Erin blushes, her cheeks and the tips of her ears heating up. This seems to delight the engineer, causing her dimples to become even more prominent. “Um, I- I meant,” she holds up the other half of her sandwich, neatly cut and wrapped. “My sandwich. Do you want it?”

Holtzmann’s smile is still in place, and her eyes twinkle with mischief. “I’m not that hungry for a sandwich. But you on the other hand...” Her eyes dip down and back up and she winks.

Erin holds the sandwich mid-air, rethinks her life and how she always manages to get herself in the middle of Holtz’s innuendos. She clears her throat and says, “You need to eat,” and Erin _sees_ the way Holtz is looking at her like she’s about to say something inappropriate so she immediately adds, “ _food_. You need to eat food.”

Holtzmann hums a tune and disappears under her work table, quickly reappearing with her can of pringles. She pops one in her mouth and gives Erin a thumbs up.

Erin sighs. “Holtz, that’s not a proper meal.”

“Oh, knew I forgot something.” She disappears back under the table and pops up with a drink in her hand. She sips loudly through the straw.

“That’s not what I meant.” Erin moves closer until she’s standing right across the table from Holtz and extends her arm to put the sandwich into her reach. “Here, eat this.”

“But it’s your lunch.”

“Don’t worry, I always pack extra food,” she lies. Erin never packs extra food.

Holtz continues munching on her chips and thoughtfully says, “Doesn’t seem fair for me to rob you of a sandwich.”

“Well, how about we trade then? Your chips for my sandwich.”

Holtzmann thinks it over, humming, then nods. “Alright,” she leans over the table, “sounds like we have a deal, Gilbert,” she says it in a low voice like they were making a drug deal. 

She ignores the way her heart flutters at the proximity and reaches over to grab the chips, but Holtz slaps her hand out of the way.

“What?” Erin questions.

“We have to shake on it first.” Holtz says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Um, okay.” Erin sticks her hand out for a handshake.

Of course, it’s not a regular handshake. Holtzmann slaps her hands several times in random patterns while Erin tries to keep up. She doesn’t think she did a very good job but the smile on Holtz’s face indicates otherwise.

“Now you can have the salty parabolas.” Holtzmann slides the can over to her while Erin gives her the sandwich. "I knew you'd give in to their deliciousness eventually."

Erin nods and smiles with satisfaction as Holtz unwraps the sandwich and takes a big bite, muttering a quiet _yum_ and giving her a thumbs up.

It’s not until later when Holtzmann is back to tinkering with her machinery that Erin tentatively reaches into the Pringles can and eats a chip.

She doesn’t notice Holtzmann watching her with a small smile from across the room.

From then on, Erin begins packing extra for lunch. She leaves food on Holtzmann’s table whenever she notices that the engineer hasn't eaten and without fail, there's always a can of Pringles on her own desk within the same hour.

She doesn’t eat them at the same rate that Holtzmann does, in fact, she barely eats them at all. Nonetheless she allows this trade to go on because that’s the only way that Holtz accepts food from her and she’s finally eating regularly.

It also helps that Holtz hasn’t realized that her supply of Pringles never dwindles because Erin puts the unopened cans back into her stash under her desk when she’s not looking.

 

-

 

Erin sleepily climbs the stairs to the second floor. The sun hasn’t come up yet, but a theory has been bothering her since she went to sleep and she’s too irritated to go back to sleep until she figures it out on her whiteboard.

She shuffles her feet quietly across the floor when a hum makes her stop in her tracks. She spins around to Holtzmann’s side of the room. There’s no sign of the engineer but the subtle hum continues. Erin cautiously approaches the work table, paranoid that Holtzmann forgot to turn off some deadly contraption.

When she’s behind the table where Holtz usually stands, her foot hits something, causing the hum to get louder momentarily. Erin bends down, having an idea of what she’s going to find.

Holtzmann is under the table, sleeping, curled into herself and cuddling a wrench in her arms.

Erin frowns. Her goggles are still on, meaning that Holtz must’ve been too tired to take them off and go downstairs to the main floor where her room is.

Her heart clenches with an unexplainable desire to take care of this woman. Erin sighs, and debates whether she should wake her up. The floor doesn’t look very comfortable.

“Holtzmann,” she whispers, gently shaking her shoulder. “Wake up.”

Holtzmann curls tighter around the wrench she’s holding to her chest. Erin tries not to think too much about being the one in Holtzmann’s arms.

“Holtz,” Erin repeats, shaking her shoulder a little harder.

The engineer furrows her eyebrows and opens one eye then closes it again. “I’m sleeping,” she murmurs.

“How long have you been down here?”

Instead of answering, Holtz mutters something about beauty sleep.

Erin shakes her again. “Come on, Jillian, let’s get you to your bed.” She tries the name and it tingles on the tip of her tongue.

Holtz slowly opens her eyes, squinting through her tinted goggles. She can’t read the expression on the engineer’s face and Erin thinks that she’s going to get reprimanded for calling her Jillian, but after a few moments, all she hears is a quiet ‘okay’.

Erin gives her room to roll out from under the table and stand up. She tries very hard not to melt at the sight of Holtzmann in this soft light with her goggles askew and loose strands of hair cascading down the side of her neck.

Erin leads her down the stairs, making sure that Holtz doesn’t get sidetracked by her projects on the journey downstairs. She leans against the doorway of Holtzmann’s room, watching as the engineer collapses on her bed and lies on her side. She’s out like a light, her hand still grasped around the wrench and goggles over her eyes.

She moves to kneel by the bed, feeling a little awkward being in Holtz’s room. She’s seen the inside of it from the hallway, but she’s never been inside the space. It’s very … Holtzmann.

Erin pries the wrench out of her hand and sets it on the bedside table. Then, she gently removes the goggles from her face, with minor grumbling from Holtz, and sets it next to the wrench.

Erin brushes loose strands of hair away from Holtz’s face and doesn’t understand why her heart is beating so fast. She tries to find answers in the curve of Holtzmann’s lips, the dip of her brows, her cheeks that are now void of the adorable dimples. She searches and searches and ends up more confused than before. That's a problem for another day.

She sighs and stands up, turns off the lights and just before she closes the door, she hears a soft “Good night, Erin,” echo through the room.

She doesn’t have the heart to remind her that it’s morning.

 

-

 

They come back from a successful mission and Holtzmann runs out of the car as soon as the engine’s off. She’s talking loudly about the new ideas she got in the midst of ghost busting and Erin is a little too tired to completely understand what she’s saying. She follows behind Holtzmann’s excited steps while Patty and Abby run past both of them to fight for the shower. For once, she wasn’t the one that got covered in ectoplasm.

Erin and Holtzmann are on the second floor. Holtz is bouncing around on her side of the room, collecting pieces and tools here and there and depositing them on her work table. Erin sits in her chair, eyes closed, listening to the sounds of Holtz’s excitement. At first it’s quick, bouncing steps, and then she hears light singing and dancing. She opens her eyes to watch because a singing and dancing Holtz is her favourite Holtz.

But then she sees it.

“Holtzmann!” She’s out of her seat immediately, crossing the room towards the blonde who’s struck still by the sudden shout.

“W-what?”

“Your arm is bleeding!” Erin gasps as she gets a closer look.

Across Holtzmann’s upper arm, near her shoulder, is a small gash that rips through her uniform. Blood slowly soaks through the surrounding fabric, leaving a dark patch along the rip. The bleeding wasn’t noticeable during their mission, but after the vigorous job, it had gotten irritated.

“Oh my god, Holtzmann! Why didn’t you tell me?!” Erin is visibly panicking and Holtzmann struggles to understand why.

She got the cut when she was trying to squeeze through a gap in the fence to gain access to the haunted property. She saw the cut, figured it was nothing, and continued on. The adrenaline that came with ghost busting and new ideas masked the pain.

“It’s just a scratch,” she pokes the area and tries not to wince. “See? Nothing to worry about.” She gives Erin a reassuring smile.

“It’s not just a scratch! God, Jill- Holtzmann!” Erin shakes her head and takes a deep breath. “Take a seat,” she orders, pointing towards a stool.

“But I have to test if the proton-”

“Sit. Now.”

Holtz shuts up and sits, hands in her lap, fidgeting nervously at the sight of Erin's clear distress. Erin retrieves a first aid kit from the cabinet and places it on the table next to Holtzmann.

Erin places her hands on her hips and sighs, frustrated with the woman in front of her. “You can’t do this, Holtz.” She gestures at the wound. “You can’t get hurt and ignore it.”

Holtz watches as Erin tentatively reaches to unbutton the top of the uniform. She takes the cue and helps maneuver her injured arm out of the sleeve.

“See? It’s nothing-” she begins without even looking at the wound. (Erin wants to roll her eyes in exasperation because really?) Holtz stops when she actually sees it. “ _Woah_ , okay nevermind.” She winces. 

Erin shakes her head. “Jillian,” she starts. Holtz looks at her right away. “This isn’t okay. You need to take care of yourself, alright?” She begins to disinfect the wound. Her anger at the situation causes her to accidently press harder than necessary.

Holtz hisses and leans away from her, putting a hand out to stop her. She quickly says, “As much as I appreciate a rough woman, please save it for the bedroom.”

Erin settles her with an unimpressed look and resumes disinfecting the wound, gentler this time. Holtz quiets down after this and it helps her concentrate. She carefully places butterfly stitches on the wound and when she’s done bandaging it, she lets out a breath that she didn’t realize she was holding.

“What, no kiss?”  

Holtzmann’s wide smirk makes her want to do irrational things. It makes her want to kiss her.

So she does.

She pulls her in and kisses her, trying to convey to Holtzmann all that she’s feeling but can’t put into words. She kisses the frustration and anger and sadness that she feels whenever she sees Holtzmann sleeping on the floor or working herself beyond her limit. She places her hands on Holtz’s neck and her thumbs caress her pulse point, feeling her fast heartbeat. It reassures her that Holtzmann isn’t going anywhere - that she’s _here_.

And maybe that’s why she cares so much. Because she wants to keep Holtzmann around for as long as she can. She wants to watch her dance, listen to her talk excitedly about her projects and she wants to blush at Holtz’s constant flirting for as long as possible. She  _likes_ her in way that she's never really felt towards anyone else. 

But if Holtzmann is ignoring everything that it takes to live a healthy life, then how can Erin be sure that Holtz won’t suddenly disappear one day? She’s never met someone who consistently prioritizes everything above herself before and the uncertainty of how much Holtz is willing to sacrifice scares her.

Erin pulls back from the kiss and hugs her around her neck, careful not to aggravate the wound. Her grip on her is tight, almost overbearing, but Holtz reciprocates it, wrapping her arms around her waist. 

Holtz senses that something is wrong, and it makes her frown momentarily at the possibility that she's the cause of Erin's troubles. "Are you okay?" She asks hesitantly. 

“I’m scared to lose you,” Erin confesses against her neck.

This makes Holtz pull back from the embrace to look Erin in the eyes. "What?"

"I-" Erin furrows her eyebrows, trying to collect her words. "I like you." Holtz smiles at that. "I like having you around. But you do things like walk around with an untreated injury and I just-"

The engineer pulls Erin back into the v between her legs and wraps her arms around her lower back, rubbing gentle circles to ease her distress. “Hey, I’m not going anywhere.” She shrugs confidently. “I have a hot doctor who fixes me up,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows up and down.

And Erin laughs because, _god_ , Holtzmann is so unabashedly _her_ and she never wants to lose that. Her laughter dies and she says, “I won’t always be around, you know. You need to take care of yourself. Please. I worry about you.”

Holtz is listening with abrupt attention, slowly connecting the dots. She hums thoughtfully, thinking back to all the instances that Erin took care of her. “So you feeding me and putting me to bed wasn’t part of your plan to woo me?” she jokes and before Erin can get a word in, she adds, “I’m kidding, you woo’d me just fine without that.”

Erin blushes. She knows that Holtz likes her because she isn’t exactly subtle about it, but it still catches her off guard whenever Holtzmann flirts with her. "I'm serious, Jillian."

The intensity of Erin's concerned gaze makes her feel off-balanced. Only her parents call her Jillian, and yet Erin says it like it belongs on the tip of her tongue. The difference between her name leaving Erin's mouth and her parents' is striking. She says it with such affection that Holtz forgets her parents' apathetic and disdained version. 

"You know, only my parents call me that." Holzmann takes her glasses off and clears her throat. "They- They didn't care very much when I was growing up. They just let me be, which in hindsight sounds like every kid's dream because I could do whatever I want, but-" she shrugs.

And Erin gets it now. She imagines a little Jillian, taking things apart in her house until late hours of the night, her parents too occupied with other matters to tell her to go to sleep. She thinks of a little Jillian being hungry, but not knowing what to eat so she goes for the snacks that her father left on the coffee table. She thinks about the neglect and it makes her heart hurt that Holtz still has those habits today. That no one she met later in life took the time to remind her that she was more important than she realized. 

"Jill- you deserve  _so_ much, okay? You're more important than projects and missions and whatever else you do. Do you understand?" 

Holtz nods shakily at her sincerity. 

"Good."

The air is filled with tension, but then Holtz slices through it like a knife cutting cake. "So Dr. Gilbert, do you kiss all your patients like that?" 

Erin rolls her eyes and chuckles. 

Holtz's eyes roam Erin's face, frowning slightly when she notices the hints of exhaustion. She looks at her wrist, pretending to read a non-existent watch. “Oh, would you look at that! It’s bed time!”

“It’s 3 in the afternoon-”

“Nope, doctor’s orders. Let’s go!” Holtz grabs her hand and pulls her downstairs towards Erin’s bedroom.

“I thought we were going to your room?” Erin questions.

Holtz smiles and raises her eyebrows. “Do you want to go to my room? You just look tired so I thought maybe,” she shrugs, “you wanted to catch a nap or something.”

"Oh," she says surprised. 

"You've been taking care of me all this time. I want to do the same for you." 

Erin can't help but kiss Holtz one more time before she enters her room and lies down on the bed. She feels the mattress dip beside her and turns to see Holtz lying on her back with her eyes closed.

"Um.." Erin starts. "Are you okay?"

"I think I should get some rest, too. Don't you think?" Holtzmann peeks at her through one eye. Erin doesn't remind her that her room is right down the hall. 

Instead, she agrees and allows Holtz to lay by her side. 

"Good night, Jillian," she says out of habit. 

Holtzmann doesn't even hesitate. "It's afternoon. Good  _afternoon_." 

Holtz's laugh is the last thing she hears of before she falls asleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> i can't seem to remember if the ghostbusters moved into the firehouse when the movie ended. if anyone remembers, pls let me know! 
> 
> i got a few prompts that i'm working on so if you have any you'd like to see, hmu @ akated.tumblr.com


End file.
